Up for an expansive game?

[RRRaskolnikov]

Here is the save.

I choosed to go with aesthetics since it seemed the most popular choice.

One turn into the set, we get an interesting event...

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The evidence is clear, "slow progression in a linear fashion weedles the player into the optimal place to get destroyed"...

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Some turns later we settle city #3, claiming another gold/pig couple.

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Settler from fact get for two. I sacrificed production efficiency for speed. We need those ressources!

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The evidence gets his cows back.

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Izzy building wineries... I can't say I am not regreting the aesthetic path already (mitigating increased costs + faster trades made alpha stronger than aesthetics imo but we will see how it turns out)

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Still, we get to taste some wine early on, our people are happy (Plus we get to cultivate diplo with Izzy)

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I am scouting/fogbusting the south, here is an overview (note the roaming warrior):

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After completing an archer, The evidence goes on with a rax to grow, with an eye on that barb city (chariots are less ridiculous promoted against archers).

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It has been a very quiet turnset regarding barbies, here is the only fight we went through:

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Our warrior in the south spots some crabs, yeah!

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A couple of turns later, our second settler does his job. Hello, city #4.

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Note how HC is going crazy with his REX, 8 cities already (settling two per turn at one point...)

Some whip micro in the cap, I thought a couple workers were more urgent than anything else.

Whipping the first one.

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Fact gets the cows again.

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And we overflow into another worker:

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1200 bc and we finally get some food up north (pigs up and running, odd I know )

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Finally aesthetics is in and I stop.

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Workers/units are unmoved, some should stay where they are in the south to fogbust, the worker near the horse should move on them, culture will grow next turn in that city!

Roster:

Rusten -> up!
Folket: hope you are feeling better, you are on deck!

 

[Folket]

I'm feeling better. I should be completely recovered tomorrow.

 

[Rusten]

Rusten -> up!

Got it.

I will read through what I've missed the last week later today and post thoughts/PPP either later today or tomorrow morning.

 

[Rusten]

Can someone show me where we decided or tell me why we have teched aesthetics? I thought we had agreed to beeline monarchy or alphabet? Couldn't find it when scanning thread.

It's completely useless, why do we have it? I just don't understand.....
What am I missing here?

 

[Folket]

I think the plan was to get it since the AI is usually slower teching aesthetics.

It was when we met Ragnar. He already had alphabet so it was reasonable to think alphabet would soon be traded around or tech by the other nations.

It is completely useless now, but we could not know that ten turns ago. We will likely have use for it soon. Ended up with alphabet when everyone else has alphabet could have been worse situation.

 

[kossin]

That ice archer city really needs a new name

 

[RRRaskolnikov]

Can someone show me where we decided or tell me why we have teched aesthetics? I thought we had agreed to beeline monarchy or alphabet? Couldn't find it when scanning thread.

It's completely useless, why do we have it? I just don't understand.....
What am I missing here?

Well i was under the impression it was the most popular choice among the team. I tryed some arguing against it but it seems i wasn t convincing anyway, we should focus on moving on from what we have

@kossin: definatly!

I ll comment more tomorrow.

Ras

 

[Rusten]

Name suggestons welcome

PPP:

Research: Literature? I don't really see much of a choice seeing as we have to wait for people to get alphabet now. It means that we don't get to trade for mysticism and polytheism as planned, but we have to do something.

Builds:
Evidence - warrior (2t -- archer goes exploring north) - settler
Fact - worker-worker
Yasod - grow with library -> worker
ice city - finish archer -> idk? worker I suppose once size 2.

EP: All on Izzy to possibly find out what she's researching in the future? The graphs really aren't that useful IMO. Up to you.

Buddhism: I'd just adopt it right now, don't see why not.

City spots: I would've liked to put a city 1N2E of the rice, but probably won't have time now before Izzy gets 100 culture in that city nearby. So that leaves:

crab+silver (very low priority)
cow+marble
something good north

I'll try to start scouting the north in this set, if nothing is revealed I will settle cow+marble first.
I think I prefer settling 1W of the wheat to share and get it productive sooner. We can irrigate the grassland river so there's still enough food to share. The southwestern tiles are bad anyway.

Did I forget something?

 

[Rusten]

Maybe reseach HBR instead, I think I prefer this. We can use the HAs to capture the barb city and it's good trade bait. Good combo with aesthetics as they can be traded in return for something the same turn.

 

[Folket]

HBR looks good to me. I would be ok with alphabet as well.

 

[RRRaskolnikov]

@Rusten: your PPP seems good. tech: HBR or alpha -> currency. HBR will be useless if an AI takes the barb city in the meantime though ( and you can't get a classical tech one for one with it iirc).

 

[Rusten]

Let's do alphabet just to be safe.

I will aim to grow a GS in pig+gold.

 

[Rusten]

Playing this sometime today if there are no objections by then.

 

[vranasm]

as an lurker I had the impression the plan was to streamline for alphabet... but what I know...

the empire looks good and you have already some strong cities, if you get the barb city you should be golden.

not sure if you have horses, but aesthetics opens music... just saying ;-)

 

[RRRaskolnikov]

not sure if you have horses, but aesthetics opens music... just saying ;-)

which opens military tradition

 

[pigswill]

which opens cuirassiers if we have iron .

 

[Rusten]

which opens cuirassiers if we have iron .

It's a go.

I forgot to make names for our cities and I can't come up with anything clever while writing the report -- already thinking enough -- I'll leave it to the next player.

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Inherit turn -- adopt Buddhism.

1040 BC: We are in luck, Huayna has Alphabet.
I immediately put beakers into Alphabet to trade with aesthetics.

1000 BC:
Trade complete with Huayna.
And another trade:

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Normally don't go for these cheap trades for WFYABTA reasons, but they don't apply here as Izzy will be trading partner and friendly later.

Iron is placed nicely. New spot for marble city is 2S of cows.

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975 BC: Izzy is willing to trade polytheism (for alphabet). I decide to go for the trade and make Literature the tech instead of currency as we got all the reqs "for free".

900 BC:
A second barb city is revealed (can't see it here, but it's a very nice city too).
Yasod gets ready for GS duty.
Marble city is settled.

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The plan was to stagnate Yasod on 4 for the GS, but I felt I couldn't not work grassland iron or gold. The GS can wait a couple of turns -- stagnate on 5.

800 BC: We've found Ragnar and Huayna borders and Ragnar has gone WHEOOH -- although everything indicates Izzy is the target. Easy to scout for a stack there anyway -- archer will explore his territory.

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750 BC (present) -- thoughts for continuation:
Literature is in, but Izzy has it too (very recent). I was going to recommend trading it to Huayna for masonry anyway, but now it feels more pressing and a no-brainer (if we attempt GL).
The good news is that we have plenty of workers nearby to chop.
IMO the GL is still worth trying for, even if there's a small chance of Izzy getting it before us, we can finish it within 2-3 turns once chopped.
The marble is already roaded so it can be hooked up in 4 turns if we postpone the cows (2 workers there). Just pre-chop forests in the meantime. Chop with marble should bring us the wonder.

Send 'ice city' archer east to fogbust for barbs, no need for garrison.
Finished the barrackses as we already had 30+ hammers into them, but the promotion won't do that much -- should've skipped these entirely tbh. Don't get a barracks in Yasod, just build swordsmen normally.

When Yasod grows add the 2nd scientist. This GS needs to pop before GL (capital) to make for academy+bulb in rapid succession.

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[RRRaskolnikov]

Great job Rusten . Not much to whine about unfortunatly

We just need to take those two barb cities, tech currency (with GL or the gold shall we fail, and building research, it won't take long), and we should be set.

Roster:

Rusten -> just played.
Folket -> up!
pigswill -> on deck!

 

[pigswill]

Are we really going to pick on those poor barbarians with our nasty swordspeople?

I knew aesthetics was a good choice .

 

[Rusten]

We just need to take those two barb cities, tech currency (with GL or the gold shall we fail, and building research, it won't take long), and we should be set.

This yes, and trade for Monarchy as priority #1 (we need to open it up too remember). After currency Civil Service is obvious.

Research currency -> research meditation most likely unless there's a good trade already (for instance maths+meditation) -> trade for Monarchy -> gauge remaining trades -> Civil S.
Of course if we're unable to trade for Monarchy after meditation we will research it ourselves -- it's too important to postpone.

I can't emphasise enough the importance of getting HR right now. We need to grow our capital far into double digits and start cottaging the river tiles once the forests are chopped for GL+NE and whatever swordsmen we need.